Second chance
by TW-addict
Summary: AU - twist on the original story - nine months after her tragic death, not long before senior scribe, Kayla returns from the dead, escaping the hell she was imprisoned in, much to Stiles' surprise. Just when he trained and conditioned himself to having lost her, she appears, broken and run down - a shadow of her former self really - but still the girl that had his heart. Please R&R


**Disclaimer- teen wolf is not mine, ANYWAYS still getting my muse back, so here a thing that is helping me get it back, easing back into writing, it takes place in a slightly different timeline compared to the canon story. It's basically Kayla coming back to life about nine months after her death, just before season five and she isn't evil haha, hope you all enjoy and please review xxx**

She woke up cold and alone and frightened, the weight of dirt pressing down on her. Suffocating her. No, _smothering_ her. Threatening to keep her there buried there forever and she almost let it. She was close to giving up, letting life slip away from her once more but despite being broken down and ruined, every part of her destroyed, she still had a little bit of resilience left. Just a dash, but it was enough.

She fought her way back to the surface from her underground prison, breaking free and gasping back mouthfuls of clean, fresh air. The first air her lungs had inhaled in... she didn't even know _how_ long. Time was different there. Time was endless. Time had no meaning to her now. She was still in eternal hell, her brain rushing and swarming with painful memories, nothing processing.

Her body, her real body, was born tired, deficient in everything it really needed. She was shockingly pale. Paler than someone of her ethnicity should be, dirt smudged across the ivory canvas. When she managed to get to her feet she stumbled a few steps forward only to fall again, her palms grazing against the forest floor.

Nothing looked right despite the obvious familiarities she knew was there. She couldn't pinpoint where she was, what she was meant to do or what month, year or decade she was thrusted back into. All she knew was she had to keep moving.

Moving was something she had been doing so well in that... _hell_.

Running.

 _Always_ running, or always _trying_ to run.

Escaping from the pain.

So she dragged herself to her bare, cut, dirty feet and kept moving. Moving forward. Well, what she _thought_ was forward. Anything was better than staying still. Than being vulnerable.

She couldn't let herself be vulnerable.

But the Black night sky quickly turned into day, the harsh bright light from the sun blinding her sensitive eyes and she was stumbling in circles, lost to the haziness and confusion. Her body still trying to regenerate fully, was getting weaker second by second.

She was losing...

... she _always_ lost.

Her nails scraped down the bark of a large tree she crashed into, her fingertips beginning to bleed as she keeled sideways and fell to the ground.

She was still losing, even when she got a second chance.

And she might have lost another fight should Stiles not have been visiting her gravesite that late afternoon, when the sun was cooling and the breeze rustled the trees. It was one of his favourite times of the day, so parked his jeep just outside the reserve and walked through the overgrown, thick dense of woods with a handful of small daisies he picked along the way, prepared to spend some time with his lost love, like he did every Sunday for the past nine months. Senior year was just around the corner and he was feeling Kayla's loss particularly hard.

They had discussed this year, made plans, ready to apply to colleges together... he wanted her by his side in graduation, but none of that was possible. Not anymore.

His heart still ached, a horrible quesy feeling spreading through his core as he flashbacked to that night and had to push it from his mind.

It did no good now. Remembering it just tore him up inside.

But when he spotted the tree she was buried under, something felt off. He couldn't pinpoint what, but there was something that felt different about it.

His feet picked up their pace, hurrying forwards and noticed the ground was disturbed.

He knew there was rodents here, sometimes other animals that could dig and bury and disrupt the earth, sometimes even domestic dogs if they smelt something but when he got closer he noticed the entire dirt had been uprooted.

"What the..."

For a second, he got angry.

No, he got _furious_.

How dare someone defile her gravesite. She didn't deserve to die but the best way he could honour her was giving her a peaceful, content place to rest and someone had ruined that. Ruined her peace.

But when he fell to his knees, the daisies slipping from his grip in turmoil, he noticed it looked almost like the earth and ground had been disturbed from below _first_. Like whatever had ruined this place, had done so from actually _underneath_ the ground.

It took a few seconds for his brain to catch up with him but when it did he leapt to his feet, dialling Scott's number.

"Kayla" he opened with as soon as Scott picked up, "Kayla's here"

Maybe he was being too hopeful and assuming, but his wants and needs was exceeding his logic and he was dead set on the idea forming in his head.

"Stiles, what are you talking about?" Scott sounded sympathetic, like he was ready to talk stiles down from his crazed ideas, "Kayla died nine months ago..."

"No, well yes, she did but her grave is-" what? Defiled? Ruined? Uprooted? He didn't know how to describe it, his words coming out hard and fast and muddled, "-look, just get down here now. Please, you'll know when you see it"

And thank god he did take Stiles' mad ramblings seriously because I'm under ten minutes Scott appeared, his expression of denial soon turning to surprise as he saw the grave.

"I'm right... I'm _right_ , aren't I?" Stiles demanded, "I mean I don't know how but she got out of there, didn't she? Can you smell her?"

"There's the smell of decay and death but it's... different" Scott explained, "it's not strong and her corpse isn't down there" he nodded to the disrupted earth, "I don't know if she's alive though" he added, full of uncertainty, "people don't come back from the dead-"

"Which way?" Stiles' voice was shaking, hope and fear in equal measure pouring from him, "Scott, _which way?"_

Scott nodded silently and off they went, hurrying and trekking through the woods as they swapped and change direction, this new and strange scent Scott had never experienced before criss crossing through the woods in confusing directions.

It was like Kayla's scent, very vaguely. But it was altered. More decayed and rotting but also fresh at the same time. Like a mix of burnt flesh and the scent new babies had.

But they kept walking, kept searching and just when they were both getting more confused did Stiles hear a small, slight sniffle and despite not having werewolf hearing, he picked it up like he did and snapped his head to the right, grabbing Scott's arm to stop him trampling through the forest and overshadowing the noise.

His throat was thick with emotion, his legs shaking as his desperate eyes zig zagged across the expanse, calling out a quiet and hoarse "Kayla?" because a part of him had begun to lose hope.

What were the possibilities, really?

Someone had probably just disturbed her grave, took her body... or maybe it was rodents and animals getting hungry and they smelt flesh...

But no sooner had those thoughts crossed his mind did he hear another sniffle and the emergence of a curtain of long, thin, knotted hair fall from behind a tree and his heart dropped in his chest, falling back a step and crashing into Scott who didn't even stabilise him, in too much of a shock.

This was all he had been wanting for the past nine months... dammit Stiles, do something!

"K-Kayla... it's... it's okay" he inched forward, his hands out and shaking as he watched the edge of her had peer out from behind the trunk, "It's me... it's Stiles"

Despite only a sliver of her pale face showing, he saw a distinctive frown crease and settle between her brows, bloodied and cracked hands clinging to the bark for dear life.

"It's... it's _your_ Stiles" he added in a whisper, tears filling his eyes because, in this moment, he didn't care how or why she was suddenly back, or even who would do such a thing because he was getting her back...

... they could maybe get their senior year after all.

She cranes her neck around the trunk, squinting her wet eyes to look at him, flicking past him to peer at a awe struck Scott before settling back on him, slowly inching more and more of her tired body around the tree.

Her jaw moved, her mouth opening but no sound came out except a strained gargle, her throat sore.

Stiles took another coupe of steps forward, trying for a small smile through the tears, "You're back Kaylz... you're back" he told her, "you're back here with me. You're _alive_ "

Maybe that moment was when she truly and finally accepted she was alive. That she had a heartbeat, a pair of working lungs facilitating air around her body. That she almost had regained all five senses. That despite the hell and horrors she went through, there was no scars on her body from the torture.

She was somehow, _miraculously_ , alive.

And the person looking at her with so much love and amazement, so much care was not the nogitsune despite them having the same face. No, this person loved her entirely and wholeheartedly, his arms open and waiting for when she was ready.

She had escaped hell... she was back.

She was actually, truthfully, really looking at Stiles.

She licked her dry lips, trying to formulate and pronounce his name but all that came out was a harsh, dry croak of his name but it seemed enough for him because his face collapsed as he let out a loud sob, dragging his feet towards her and despite the fear, the wariness, the confusion, she stumbled towards him at the same time.

Stiles was her home.

Stiles she trusted.

Stiles she wanted.

Stiles, she had missed.

Salty tears escaped her blurry eyes, cascading down her dirt smudged cheeks but her weak, achey legs gave way just before she reached him but he caught her just in time, both falling to the leaf covered ground as she begun sobbing into his chest, grabbing desperately at his clothes like she was anchoring herself to him, not wanting to leave.

Never wanting to leave his arms, his presence, and get dragged back to hell.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's alright" he soothed, hushing her as he stroked her hair despite the cries wracking his body, Scott watching on in amazement and shock as he numbly pulled his phone from his pocket because his friends, their friends, needed to know about this now. Like right now. They had gone through enough seconds with this pain and loss without going through anymore unnecessary ones.

"S-Stiles" she was croaky and sore but mounded into the contours of his body perfectly, mumbling into his shirt as she peered up at him, "am I.. r-really ho... ho-home?"

The word was so foreign to her now she didn't even know if she was saying it correctly because for the last god knows how long, she didn't have a home.

"Yes" he whispered, hugging her to his body as he cupped her cheek, wiping away her tears as they embraced for the first time in what was like an entire lifetime, an embrace that should never have been but they got, "You're home Kaylz" their eyes met, both hurting, both in pain, but both hopeful, "...You're _**home"**_

 **A)n) I am sorry... not hahahahahhahahahha (manic laughter) gonna admit it was tempting to do it this way but evil Kayla took the crown ha if everyone liked I could do another chapter of Kayla settling into life and everyone else's reactions lol but please please review, they mean the world and I will definitely update the main story ASAP ha see y'all soon xxx**


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